Messa di Voce is an audiovisual system in which the speech,
shouts and songs produced by two vocalists are radically augmented
in real-time by custom interactive visualization software. The installation
touches on themes of abstract communication, synaesthetic relationships,
cartoon language, and writing and scoring systems, within the context
of a sophisticated and playful virtual world.

Levin and Lieberman's software transforms every vocal nuance into
correspondingly complex, subtly differentiated and highly expressive
graphics. These visuals not only depict the users' voices, but also
serve as controls for their acoustic playback. While the voice-generated
graphics thus become an instrument which the users can perform,
body-based manipulations of these graphics additionally replay the
sounds of the users' voices — thus creating a cycle of interaction
that fully integrates the visitors into an ambience consisting of
sound, virtual objects and real-time processing.

Messa di Voce lies at an intersection of human and technological
performance extremes, melding the unpredictable spontaneity of the
unconstrained human voice with the latest in computer vision and
speech analysis technologies. Utterly wordless, yet profoundly verbal,
Messa di Voce is designed to provoke questions about the
meaning and effects of speech sounds, speech acts, and the immersive
environment of language.

A technical diagram and wiring layout for the Messa di Voce installation
will be available soon.

Required Equipment

We request venues interested in exhibiting the Messa
di Voce installation to provide certain equipment, including
computers, video projectors, sound support, etc. Generally we have
found that the purchase/rental of this equipment totals less than
€5000. Exhibitors should provide:

Under some cirumstances, depending on availability, the
Messa di Voce team may be able to provide some of the above
equipment. If not, it may be necessary for the exhibiting venue
to provide the listed materials, or to provide funds for obtaining
them. Generally, an amount of approximately $1000 is sufficient
to obtain the smaller equipment, such as the camera, audio and video
capture cards, etc.

Installation Timetable

The Messa di Voce installation has a complex setup
phase, requiring location-specific adjustments to our computer-vision
tracking system. For this reason, we require the following timetable
for installing the exhibit:

All equipment listed above, including computers and video projection
systems, should be on-site three full days prior to the
opening of the exhibition.

Artists Golan Levin and Zach Lieberman require at least three
full days to prepare the installation, and should therefore arrive
on-site at least 4 days prior to the opening.